dots on my desk drawer at work. my desk drawer is probably older than me.

15-0 is a shutout score in volleyball, not sure if that’s what it refers to. scratches. sometimes, art teachers need to just scratch the shit out of something. other times, there isn’t a cutting mat nearby, so you just cut with your craft knife right on the desk.

not sure. but it’s a pretty symbol.

peace.

being a teacher, i see many around the school. being an image maker, i’m constantly aware.

if you see some somewhere, share them with me and i will post them here.

here’s a few that i found in a classroom where i teach…

there’s something about that little triangle that i found interesting. why would somebody draw a triangle? was it a conscious thought?

ready 2 party.

that’s a beautiful eye. the detail and care given to the drawing during class says a lot. but what? i don’t know.

peace.

directed by Joe Wigdahl.

here are the lyrics to the song…

i’ve good friends with bad habits,
what am I to do?
they’re literary romantics,
they fuck like wilde,
and indulge like hemingway.

i’ve good friends with bad habits
and a tendency towards negligence.
just petty thieves and addicts,
that don’t hurt anyone
but they’ll burn anyway.

well sometimes,
like every time
a train passes,
i get jealous of the long nights,
and blurred lights,
the red eyes,
the bar fights.
where in the hell am i?
and how did i get here?
and which way to the nearest train?

well sometimes,
like every time she breathes,
i embrace my routine.

i’ve good friends with bad habits.
what am i to do?
they’re literary romantics,
they’ll fuck like wilde,
and die like hemingway.

i like the song, not just because it’s my friend’s creation, but because it does make me think about my own life as well as my friends and where i’m at in life. anyway, hope you enjoy it.

peace.

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some things that i learned over the school year…

1. i need to be better about making my lessons less daunting in terms of concepts and meaning-making, or at least making it so that students are able to find what they want to say because they want to say it, and not because i want them to make it. because so much of my personal work is about personal reflection, i think i have a tendency to want my students to achieve the same amount of meaning in their work. i have to remember that most of my students aren’t going to be artists and that i should allow for that, but also be able to give them a valuable art-making experience.

2. i have to stay on top of working with students who have learning disabilities and be able to direct those students in a more welcoming and understanding manner. not that i was mean or anything, but i recognize that many of these students will need a little more direction and support than students who may not need help.

3. students who are lazy and unwilling to participate need to be identified and more efficiently managed. whether its by removing them from the class or if they need to be held more accountable with appropriate consequences, i need to be more conscious and better equipped mentally. i had too many students that i feel i allowed to remain in the class when it was clear that they had no intention of participating appropriately in my class which led to a lot of wasted time and effort for me, as well as to other students who were more deserving of my attention.

4. the zine project needs to be seriously evaluated, if not removed from my curriculum. i really liked the concepts and ideas, and i hope that my students learned how to use Adobe Photoshop, but in the end, i think that it was way too much and too frustrating, both technically and conceptually. i need to either break it down and make it a project that has smaller blocks of time spent on it over the year, or just make it a group project where each student provides a page to the zine.

5. more technique needs to be taught. i need to focus more on the how-to, but also need to be better at the why?

k. here are some photos of some of my students work.

papercutting was a lesson based on the work of Peter Callesen, Jen Stark, and Patrick Gannon. Students were asked to recreate/re-tell a story or myth.

“diaristic” or emotion based drawing using pastels. for this work, we looked at the work Edgar “Heap of Birds” Hachivi.

peace.

i had students read about zines by reading excerpts from Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine? and showing them the movie A Hundred Dollars and a T-Shirt. then we had a discussion about various topics on gender stereotypes and how they influence how we see the world and we see ourselves. here’s a list of the questions that i posed to them:

• What does it mean to act like a man? What words or expectations come to mind? (e.g., men don’t cry, men are tough, men are strong) Name at least three.
  What does it mean to be ladylike? What words or expectations do you think of? (e.g., girls are polite, girls are neat, girls are passive) Name at least three.
• Where do we learn these gender roles? What people teach us these stereotypes? People in entertainment? Sports? Media? Where else in society do we find these messages? Name specifics and use at least three examples.
• What names or put-downs are directed at boys when they don’t fit the stereotypes? Or What names are women called if they step out of the stereotype box? Use at least three examples.
• How do these labels and names reinforce these stereotypes?
• How does it feel when we are called these names?
• What do you think the person who is using these put-downs is feeling?
• What are some situations where you may be pressured to “Act Like A Man” or “Be a Lady?” (e.g., for boys, friends may tell you to try a cigarette or participate in a risky activity, to prove that you’re tough, or for girls, you might be prevented from playing a certain sport or you might let someone bully you into doing something that you don’t want to do, because it isn’t “ladylike” to argue or be assertive.)
• How might these stereotypes lead to violence? (e.g., boys might be expected to ‘fight it out,’ rather than ‘talk it out,’ and girls might be expected to put up with bullying, rather than be assertive.)

their zine itself is open to any topic on any gender that they want to focus on. I’ve been on the unit for about a week now. so far i think its been pretty good. i hope that having the discussion and posing these questions to my students will help them. but we’ll see i suppose. i’ve given them an outline for their zine, such as criteria for text and images, layout, where they can get their images, and even how they will bind their zines. we’ll see how it goes. if anyone wants to see the actual lesson plan, let me know, i can email it out.

peace.

just watched Planet B-Boy last night. it was pretty awesome. it was more awesome that it was a documentary made by an Asian-American, Benson Lee. For those of you who haven’t heard of the movie, its a movie about the dance component of the hip-hop culture. like many other “big event” type of movies that focus on the road to the culminating event of its corresponding activity, Planet B-Boy focuses on five different teams members and their journey to the Battle of the Year.

I really liked it because not only was it directed by an Asian American, but also because three of the five teams that were showcased were from Asian countries: Japan and two from Korea. the Chinese and Taiwanese teams apparently weren’t as good so they weren’t deemed important enough to focus on.

the movie wasn’t just about the art of break-dancing, and the other stories that were told in the movie were really quite touching and poignant.

anyway, if you’re in Chicago, you should check it out, its playing at the landmark theater in the Century Mall in boy’s town. the last day to see it is thursday, so make sure you get to it if you can make it.

peace.

i’ve been thinking about this image a lot lately. even though i was only 11 years old at the time, i remember trying to record this moment on a crappy tape.

i don’t really remember what i was thinking at the time. its a bit presumptuous to think that i actually thought anything grand…i mean, i also remember trying to record an audio tape of a match between Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage on tv.

maybe what i was thinking was how impacting the images on the screen were. how do you, as a lone person stand up fearlessly against a tank? against a nation’s army and government? i consider myself a bit of a deviant, and a bit of a rebel (well, at least an angry person), who hates much of what the U.S. has come to represent, but i would definitely question whether i would have the courage and strength to stand up to a barrel of a gun, let alone a tank.

i remember seeing this person on tv. it was a pretty wide shot. i remember having fear for this person, and a bit of pride. he had the strength i wanted. he believed in something strong enough that he would be willing to stand down a group of tanks. he was Chinese. and yet just like many of the asians in the U.S. now, he is unknown. someone whose conviction forced him to stand up to an army, and we don’t even know his name. just like so many asians in the U.S. that have accomplished, suffered, realized, survived, activized, fought, won, lost, succeeded, marginalized, silenced, expressed, soared, represented, and loved, are unknown to most of us. even us who live within those communities.

because of all that’s been happening in China with Tibet, and even thinking now with how the U.S. is being run, represented, and dictated, i wonder at what point will the people who aren’t disillusioned or bought-in will start to stand up in empowerment against those who would have been abusing privilege and power in this country for so long.

in actuality, the more i think about it, i know people who are already doing that type of stuff, its a matter of making bigger statements. making statements that will resonate in people as has the “unknown rebel” image has.

peace.

some things that i’m thinking about as i continue on in this new little venture…

• capitalization. the big letters. will i use them? probably not. i’d like to see how little i can use them.
• what i’ll be reflecting on…
  • education
  • art
  • being asian
  • being american
  • being asian american
  • video games
  • …
  • uhm…
  • what else is there?
  • life?
  • family
  • contradictions
  • stuff
  • religion (well at least my lost love of it…or my lack of lost love for it…or however that terms is used. basically, about my issues with christianity.)
  • why things in between parenthesises shouldn’t be very long
  • lol stuff as well as some not so lol stuff
  • living
  • loving
  • video games
  • uhm…
  • loneliness versus being alone
  • teaching
  • learning
  • re-learning
  • unlearning
  • feminism
  • socialized behaviors
  • hmm…this list is long
• how i should design this blog
• what’s the point?
• will people read?
• do i want people to read?
  • this last one is ridiculous because i wouldn’t blog if i didn’t want people to read, otherwise i’d just keep a journal. right?
  • then again, i’ve never successfully kept a journal. i have a lot of journals with one or two entries which are now recycled as sketch books. which i guess is a good thing.
• i hope that you enjoy my blog.

peace.